brainless_fps_player said:
thedoclc said:
brainless_fps_player said:
Freedom of speech is idiotic. Political correctness, equally so.
Words can hurt, and should be moderated, if only by common sense. There is nothing to be gained by giving people the right to slander or make inflammatory remarks.
On the other hand, the government has no right or purpose whatsoever to dictate right and wrong in any context, including words and opinions.
*snip*
Wait, wait, wait...government isn't supposed to moderate free speech, but people don't have the right to make inflammatory remarks? That's an inherent contradiction; either the state DOES regulate such speech or else people do have the RIGHT to make the remarks. Suffering consequences from non-government sources is not a violation of one's rights (in non-equal opportunity cases.) If a worker makes racist slurs and their employer fires them, that's not an infringement of rights as an employer is able to terminate employment for any reason.
To the extent government does NOT regulate communication, you have free speech. If government has no right to regulate free speech, then by definition you have unlimited freedom of speech. US constitutional law does place a few limits on free speech, most of them regarding either obscenity or else incitement to immediate violence. Most "censorship" in the US is actually done by the private sector. (Not allowing minors into certain movies, for example, is not a government policy but a voluntary decision by the MPAA.) The private sector cannot take your rights away, but they can cease doing business with you, which is -not- the same thing as censorship.
Edit: To clarify, if a hate-group wants to put out their message, they can under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, provided the message is not inciting -immediate- violence. So if the Klan wanted to post their screed, they can, but they can't say, "And let's go kill us some insert group we hate right now!"
Okay, when I talk about rights, I talk about moral rights, not government prescribed rights. For example, I don't believe people have the moral right to hurt people with what they say, but equally I don't believe people have the moral right to cheat on their partners. In both cases, I don't believe the government should intervene.
Government should do what's best for the majority, not dictate moral ideals, for while I don't believe in freedom of speech, I do believe in freedom of thought. To believe in TOTAL freedom of speech is to deny that speech can have a negative impact, which is obviously false.
Total freedom of speech does not exist in any nation and is a straw man. Arguing against an absolute is simple; it takes no effort to create a reductio ad absurdum. Nor is it to deny that speech can hurt simply because one believes it is protected. As a former medical practitioner and current med students, I'm -livid- when I see people taking advantage of others using what amounts to modern snake oil. Their speech is still protected, however much I consider such people ignorant at best, malicious at worst.
If you mean moral rights, the term is "so-and-so is morally permissible," as rights are freedoms protected from abridgment by state power. I believe plenty of things which are morally questionable should be legal, but that is a separate argument entirely.
I could very easily construct a reductio ad absurdum of an argument saying "Speech which does any harm should be prohibited." If I tell someone, honestly, "That tie is hideous and you look goofy in it," I may hurt their feelings even if my only intent is to convey an honest assessment of their fashion sense.
"Government should do what's best for the majority, not dictate moral ideals," is a moral ideal which the government would have to dictate to the populace (and often enforce with force). It contradicts itself. It's also very well refuted in Mill and others. The short version is: if a majority of people are helped by extreme persecution of a small minority, does that persecution become moral? For example, if kicking a native group off their land because many more people will benefit from using that land for another purpose benefits the majority, does the State have the right to take that land? What if the tribe refuses to leave; is it moral to kill them if it benefits a larger group of people? The idea clearly contradicts itself. In poli-philo, it's usually called, "the tyranny of the majority."
